RHAYADER residents get a chance to head for the beach without having to leave their home town this Sunday afternoon, April 8, when a Beach Party is being held with visitors welcome too.

The event will be filmed by Thomas Jones of Hafod Hardware and his film-maker friend Josh Holdaway as a tongue in cheek promotion of Visit Wales’ 2018 Year of the Sea tourism theme.

Although Radnorshire is landlocked with no coast, Rhayader is determined not to miss out and to play its part with the Town Council having already agreed a a £500 grant to Rhayader 2000 towards a promotion.

“Myself and my film-maker friend Josh produced a Christmas Advert for my business Hafod Hardware which had great exposure and publicity over Christmas. Off the back of the success of our video, Rhayader 2000 approached us and asked if we could make something similar to promote the town,” said Thomas.

“The Year of the Sea video is a project that is moving at a rate of knots and growing by the day. We want to have it released by the end of April to target the summer tourists. Every year, Visit Wales have a theme and 2018 is the Year of the Sea. We are trying to turn this theme which isolated many Mid Wales towns into something humorous and so we decided to bring the Sea to Rhayader.

“We will have, donkey rides, live music, a licensed bar, bouncy castles kindly donated by Corporatefun, face painting, hair braiding and we are calling on the town and anyone who can help to come and be extras for the afternoon.

“We want them in swimwear with their towels, buckets and spades, sun cream, parasols etc etc. The idea is to then release the video online and for everyone to get sharing it.

“Hopefully it will put our town on the map and make Rhayader THE place to visit in 2018. We really want this to be a community project that pushes a small town into the limelight,” added Thomas.

The Beach Party and filming will take place between 12noon and 3pm this Sunday, meeting at the Gro car park.